January 31.
Cumvess New Year cannot be lightly dismissed as a "silly season." In itself it is a serious matter, whether regarded from a hedonistic, economic or domestic point of view; in its ramifications it may be responsible for piracies on the Huangpu or for conflagrations in the Settlement. Circumstances, however, have combined this year to invest the occasion, as fur as the local Press is concerned, with all the attributes of the dual reign of the gooseberry and the sea-serpent. In our own columns the Venerable the Archdeacon A. E. Moule has been Jed, in the course of an interesting recital on men and matters connected with his own wide and profitable experience of some seventy years, to tell of ghosts and mysterious visitations which have, certainly, the merit of defying the explanation that so frequently dis-of similar anecdotes. But still nearer home we have our own "spook" episodes, duly authenticated by the shrewd intellects of our local police, no mere hearsay Gvidence of unsubstantiated legend. Fires, already to be counted in woores, are breaking out with bewildering persistency in one and the same house; all occur during the day time, for choice in the actual presence of the inmates or of others endeavouring to elucidate the' mystery. The police and even amateur detectives have admitted themselves baffled; in these circumstances it would seem almost unfair to attempt to probe the matter farther. As an episode it makes good reading, and the public ought to be content, in order to wind off the narrative, to fall back upon the Chinese explanation. Evil agencies are clearly at work; and as they must belong to the spiritual world, the ministrations of the Taoist priest called in to exorcise them for a fee of thirty dollars should sooner or later prove effective, if he is concerned to remain a credit to his calling. The matter-of-fact foreigner may seck a more terrestrial explanation of the occurrences. He is likely, however, to receive little encouragement from the harrowed victims, for they have reached the stage when their nerves prompt them to seek relief by capitulation and flight, rather than trust that the ingenuity of the evil agency will overreach itself and clear the way for detection.
From the intrinsically beautiful and instructive imagery of the! folk-lore of ancient Greece and Rome it is a long cry to the more prosaic and less artistic treatment accorded to the subject in China. Running through the attempts of all nations, however, to explain what is either wrapped in the) oblivion of the past or, in the case; of contemporary life, is not obvious to the untrained intellect, we find similar beliefs, evolved spontaneously in the early history of each people or more probably representing one original stratum of language and thought. Thus it is that the fox to whose agency the outbreaks of fire are attributed by the Chinese mind reappears as the evil genius of Scandinavian and other folk-lore. It is through him that women become and that household furniture takes upon itself violent convulsions—the latter a belief that has its counter-sod Gre bes always. hed a mystic rt in Italy. On the other
significance for primitive peoples, and with the Chinese of to-day there linger as strange beliefs regarding the part it plays in human affairs as of its origin in certain circumstances. Its purifying properties have been recogniz~ ed from the time when Prometheus brought to earth the torch he had lighted at the Sun's chariot. Fitted to modern surroundings we find this aspect leading to the belief that a certain number of conflagrations are required annually in a given district to appease powers of the unseen world ar to effect the necessary purification. Such a theory, if in reality lurking in the unfathomable Chinese mind, may in conjunction with more, practical considerations of insurance throw a sinister light on the normal popularity of house fires towards the close of the Chinese year. Against such a picturesque old-world belief have to be ranged the exacting demands of arson laws or of the more accommodating Mixed Court principle of culpable negligence. So too in the case of the recent mysterious fires, if the proposal of our local psychical research enthusiasts to hold a seance in the haunted premises falls to the ground, it may be found that an imp of mischief indeed exists, not, however, hailing from the spiritual world, but in the person' of a small slave girl or other irresponsible inmate of the house.
A materialistic explanation of what we should Jike to connect with the supernatural, if only by reason of our own association wit it, savours of vandalism. Man~ kind is by nature superstitious, and though the scope of his superstitions may vary according to peoples and crus, he will still cling to his fallacies, for all that they may be subjected to the fierce searchlight of science and reason. Few even of the most enlightened can contemplate with indifference the shattering of pet idols. And yet how many have to be sacrificed' as the years pass by;! Even the natural world is not exempt from the attacks that have wrought such havoc upon the supernatural realm. For generations—to quote a fami liar instance—we have had but one idea of the ostrich apart from its millinery qualifications—that it hides its head when alarmed, and leaves the rest of its body exposed to observation and danger. To-day we know that it is a much-maligned bird, which does no such thing. Ina clumsy anthropomorphic way we have entirely misinterpreted its behaviour. It is a congenital or hereditary act on the part of the ostrich from the chick stage onwards to feign death. This it does by falling flat and extending its neck and head along the ground, and in its natural habitat it is difficult to distinguish the bird,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.